Apple hides certain files and folders; this is normally a good thing because tampering with hidden system files could crash your Mac if you don’t know what you’re doing. However certain circumstances require access to the hidden files & folders, luckily there are a few easy ways to show all the hidden items.

Below are 3 ways to show the hidden files & folders. The Automator script is a simple script I made myself that will quickly and easily show or hide the hidden items; all you have to do is download and run it. If you feel more comfortable using an application built specifically to show and hide the hidden files and folders, then you can use the free Revealer App. The terminal method is pretty much the exact same thing as the Automator Script and Revealer app, the only difference being that you manually enter the code instead of automatically having it done by the script or app.

Automator Script

Automator – Click Run

To use the Automator script, simply download and open it. Automator, an application that comes pre-installed on Macs will open. Click the “Run” button located on the upper right of the application window. A message will pop-up asking if you’d like to show the hidden files & folders. Click “OK”. This will cause Finder to close and then relaunch.

To reverse the effect, hiding the files & folders, simply run the Automator script again. Each time you show or hide the hidden items Finder will have to relaunch.

Revealer App

Revealer App

Revealer is a free, nifty little app that has one simple purpose; to show and hide the hidden files and folders as well as the hidden ~/Library folder. The app is extremely light, weighing in at under 1MB. This is a good thing, because it makes it very, very fast.

At the top of the app there are two tabs, “Show Hidden Files” and “Show ~/Library”. It can’t get any easier than that.

This app comes in especially handy if you are an app developer, web developer or someone who needs to show and hide the hidden files on a daily basis. The Revealer app can be stored in the Dock for quick access. The App itself is nonintrusive, loads up practically instantly, and has 1 button under each tab; an on and off switch. Simple and straight forward.

Each time you show or hide the hidden items Finder will have to relaunch.

Terminal

Terminal

*UPDATE* – 10/31/2013 – The following codes have have been updated to successfully show hidden files & folders on OS X Mavericks.

Terminal is an App you can find in your Applications/ folder or by searching for it in Spotlight. Simply copy and paste the codes below into Terminal and press the Enter key. (Watch the upper case and lower case letters)

Enter this code to show the hidden files & folders:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Finder has to be restarted. To do this enter:

killall Finder

Enter this code to hide the hidden files & folders:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

Finder has to be restarted. To do this enter:

killall Finder

The above codes work perfectly fine for me on every test I’ve run however it has been reported that the last part of the code, “YES” and “NO” does not work for some people. If showing or hiding the hidden files with “YES” or “NO” does not work for you then replace it with “TRUE” or “FALSE”.

Permanently show the Hidden Library Folder

When Apple released OS X Lion they decided they wanted to hide the Library folder. If you want to get it back permanently, it’s incredibly easy to do. Open Terminal and enter:

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

Press Enter. Now your Library folder will be shown in your Home folder.

To go back to the default setting of having the Library folder hidden enter this into Terminal:

chflags hidden ~/Library/

Quick temporary access to the Hidden Library Folder

Option Key

If you’re simply looking for a quick way to get into the hidden Library folder located in your Home folder, simply hold down the “Options” key on your keyboard while selecting “Go” in Finders Menu Bar options. Normally Library is hidden in the menu, letting go of the “Options” key will immediately hide the folder again.

This will not show all the hidden files & folders like the above methods, it will simply grant you access to the hidden Library folder.

Really good article and thanks for the automator script. Ive always hated entering the terminal commands. I can not believe I didn’t think of making an automator script to do it for me. Anyways it works great, thanks again.

Even after showing all the hidden files with Revealer, you cannot search for .DS_Store files in search. You can view then separately in each folder though. I’m not sure why you can’t search for all the hidden DS_Store files but here is a workaround.

To remove all .DS_Store files you need to open Terminal and enter (copy and paste):

sudo find / -name “.DS_Store” -depth -exec rm {} ;

It’ll ask you for your password, enter it and all the DS_Store files will be removed. Why would you want to remove the .DS_Store files though? They contain folder specific information like icon size, window size ect.

Another quick tip, if you want to prevent .DS_Store from being created, enter this into terminal:

You are awesome!!! I’ve been messing the the terminal method for the last couple of years since I purchase my MBP 2011 and I hate it. It seems utterly archaic and could never remember the command, so I’d always have to Google it first. I know, I know, I did save the command somewhere on my HD, but always seem to have a hard time where. The REVEALER method is something that Apple should’ve included on their Mac OS by default. Go figure! It’s so simple and fast, I hate myself for not discovering it earlier. Love you for that! Recommend to EVERYONE interested in have the option of toggling between showing Hidden Files in their Finder. Hats off!

Thanks for the comment Terry, glad it was able to prove helpful to you. I have to agree, showing the hidden files on a Mac should be simpler, hopefully Apple will incorporate an easier way to to it. Until then, Revealer works great.

I am getting this error when I try to open a folder like downloads from my dock icons. I also cannot launch a new finder window by double clicking on finder. I am able to open new windows by right clicking finder and selecting to open a new window but the fact that this Revealer app has messed with the ease of using my system seems like the program may have not been worth downloading and using. An app to make like easier which then makes life more complicated seems to fight itself in serving the purpose of usability.

I was hoping others may have found a solution and could help me out. I have googled the error and followed directions on taking the preference file and putting it in the waste bin then restarting Finder through a force quit/relaunch but it does not seem to be working.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I will update this with any follow up solutions I find. This is happening on OS X 10.8.3 off of BOTH my ‘new’ mac mini mid 2011 and my older macbook pro 7,1 early 2010.

Have you experienced this issue at all before using the Revealer app? It seems odd that it would be the cause. If you do believe it is the direct cause of the issue, you could remove the revealer app and use any of the other options listed above to show the hidden files and folders.

I use the software myself and thousands of other people have downloaded it and use it, never have I heard of it causing an error like this. Anyways if you find a solution or the reason why finder is acting up please let us know.

So I emailed the makers of Revealer and got an amazingly quick response from a gentleman. He offered up a few links for me to check out, some of which I had already found. He suggested I try restarting and hope it would fix itself or to follow the instructions found on the links to remove some files that will get replaced automatically upon a restart.

I did that with no fix. I even booted in safe mode to remove the preference files and that did not work either. With a growing need to make progress on work I said screw it and moved forward. Later I found that my Google Drive app was not working properly and giving me errors. I found that following the directions for Google Drive errors gave me no help so I google my *new* problems for answers. I found that many others were experiencing some major issues with Google Drive on Mac OS X 10.8.3 I decided to turn off Google Drive and try to survive without it.

I later found that iCloud is free for the first 5GB and is rather seamless in use. I have decided to forgo using Google Drive to use iCloud instead. I have not yet used Revealer again to test out if that will cause errors. I don’t have a need currently to use the app again having already completed my task. I will leave Revealer installed for future use but will leave it be until I NEED to use it in fear that it may bring the issues back despite my confidence Google Drive was the culprit.

Damien thanks for the quick response and confidence in the Revealer App. I have recently learned much more about Macs, and OS X than I had ever wished to learn. My Macbook Pro came into a downwards spiral this past week and I bought the Mac mini to help fix it along with serving as a fully functional computer for redundancy. Your site is on a list of many very informative places I went to get me through this crazy week. Thanks so much!

TL:DR
Google Drive more than likely caused the issues.
It may have been a toxic interaction btwn Revealer and Google Drive but this claim is not supported with data.
Turned off Google Drive, switched to using iCloud and life is great again.

Glad to hear you got it resolved. I’ve never heard of Google Drive causing issues like that but I’ll defiantly check into it. Also thanks for coming back and letting us know you found the solution, and especially posting such an informative and descriptive comment on it.

I’m currently in contact with the developers of the Revealer app, and am currently testing out their new version of it (not yet released to the public). I use Revealer to show my hidden files and folders quite often so I’m glad to see they are still trying to make it ever better. I’ll update this article with the new version when it is released.

Alright, well here’s my story: It may be a bit irrelevant to this but my friend (he’s good with computers) told me I need to unhide my drivers so he can fix this app I downloaded called steam..the steam dmg makes my computer lag a lot and basically he’s trying to get rid of it..and to do so he needs to see my drivers and whatnot. However, I hided my drivers awhile ago and didn’t realize their importance. If the apps you stated above will help me in my problem, please let me know? My email is [email protected].

Also, I tried the terminal codes and nothing happened. Again I apologize if this is irrelevant to this page!

This allowed me to “find” several artist directories that were hidden in my iTunes Media/Music directory. Any idea why some are hidden (the music is still available in iTunes) and what causes it? Using Get Info, I don’t see any difference in the settings between those that are hidden and those that are not. Thanks again.

Glad to hear it worked for you. Unfortunately I don’t have an explanation as to why some of your iTunes music files were hidden. I’ve never heard of iTunes doing that. If you happen to find out why, let me know. I’d be interested knowing.